The things were incredibly quick. They were on him before he could squeeze off a shot. He fell with them on top. Blood was everywhere. His blood. A maw ringed with teeth swooped toward his throat.
Edwin Ryker screamed.
Death Gasp
Nate King came up off the bench as if hurled by invisible hands. He was at the window in three bounds. Parting the red curtains, he peered out into the night, the domino in his hand forgotten.
“What on earth?” Aunt Aggie said. She, Anora and Tyne were still at the table, dominoes spread in front of them.
“Didn’t you hear that?”
“Hear what, Mr. King?” Tyne asked.
A shot, Nate was about to say, but didn’t. It might worry them. “I’m not sure,” he hedged.
Aunt Aggie’s elbow brushed his. “You can tell me,” she whispered.
Before Nate could answer, they both heard something else. Faint and far off, it wavered on the wind like the ululating howl of a wolf. Only it wasn’t a howl. It was a scream, a very human scream, a scream of terror.
“God in heaven!” Aunt Aggie breathed. “Who could that be?”
Nate had an idea, but he stayed silent.
“Should we go investigate? Maybe we can help.”
“By the time we got there, it would be too late.”Besides which, Nate wasn’t about to go rushing off in the dark.
“What are you two listening to?” Tyne asked.
Nate closed the curtains. Aggie spared him having to lie by lying herself. “A coyote, child. A harmless coyote. Let’s get on with our game, shall we? Your mother will want to tuck you in soon. It’s getting late.”
Erleen and Peter were over by the fireplace, conversing in low tones. Fitch and Harper were sitting on their blankets playing cards. Philberta was asleep. She tossed and turned a lot, and from time to time she mumbled unintelligibly.
Nate reclaimed his seat. He matched a six with a six, and folded his arms across his chest to await his next turn. Behind him, propped against the wall within easy reach, was his Hawken. He tried not to think of the shot and the scream, but they echoed again and again in his mind.
“Are you all right, Mr. King?” Anora asked.
“Never better.” Nate swapped glances with Aggie.
Tyne was deciding which domino to play. “I want to hear more about your daughter.”
“She’s a lot like you,” Nate said. But it wasn’t entirely true. Evelyn had an inner strength the Wood-row girls lacked. They were sweet and kind and polite, but if put to the test, if confronted by a hungry bear or a hostile, they were apt to run where his daughter was more likely to put a bullet into whatever or whoever was out to do her harm.
“Does she like dolls? I have four. One I like a lot, but Mother wouldn’t let me bring it. She said it would only get lost or dirty and I could go without until we get home. But I miss it. The doll’s name is Mindy”
“When Evelyn was little her mother made a Sho-shone doll for her,” Nate revealed.
All three looked at him.
“Indians have dolls?” Anora said.
“Why wouldn’t they? Girls are the same whether they are red or white, and girls like to play with dolls and dress them up and pretend they are people.”
A shadow fell across the table and Erleen announced, “Time to end your game. I have let you stay up past your bedtime as it is.”
“But no one has won yet,” Anora said. “Can’t we stay up another half an hour?”
“No.”
“Fifteen minutes?”
“Anora Woodrow, you will put away those dominoes and get ready for bed, and I do not want to hear another word out of you. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“The wash basin is on the counter. You can change in the pantry.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Aggie began gathering up the dominoes. “Leave these for me,” she told the girls.
Nate slid his across the table. “Care for a cup of coffee?”
“This late? I wouldn’t sleep a wink.”
The pot on the stove was half full. Nate poured and went back to the table. The family was preparing for bed. The girls were as cute as buttons in their long nightdresses. Tyne’s was pink, Anora’s blue. Erleen had them kneel and say their prayers, then pulled their blankets up to their chins and pecked each on the forehead.
Fitch and Harper stopped their card game and turned in.
Nate figured it wouldn’t be long before the parents and Agatha chased sleep, but all three joined him at the table. “Something on your minds?”
Erleen coughed. “First off, we want to thank you for staying. Mr. Ryker was a terrible disappointment.”
“But he was right. It is dangerous here. Every minute you stay, you put your lives at risk.”
Peter scowled. “It can’t be helped. I care for my brother and his boys. I need to know what happened to them.”
“They are long dead by now,” Nate said bluntly.
“Possibly. Even probably. But we won’t know for sure until we find them or their remains.”
“You’re asking the impossible.”
“My wife and I have talked it over and we are in agreement. We intend to scour the valley from one end to the other.”
“You might not find anything.”
“Unless someone buried them there will be bones, at the very least. The remains could reveal their fate.”
“And if we don’t find anything?” Nate asked. “How long are you willing to put your family in peril before you decide enough is enough and return to civilization?”
“We have given ourselves a week. If we haven’t found Sully or the boys by then, we will pack up and head for Bent’s Fort. You are welcome to accompany us.”
“I’ll see you as far as the foothills,” Nate offered. That should be near enough. At the trading post they could hire another guide to see them across the prairie to the Mississippi.
“Your Shoshone friends will wonder what has become of you,” Aunt Aggie said.
Just then, Philberta commenced to toss about and mutter in her sleep, her hands clenching and un-clenching.
“The poor dear,” Erleen commiserated. “She’s suffered terribly. It’s a wonder she is still alive.”
“One of us must stay with her at all times while the rest are off searching,” Peter said.
Nate set down his cup. “The only ones who will do any searching are you and me.”
“I beg your pardon? My sons are perfectly capable of lending a hand. And my wife and Agatha have volunteered to help.”
“The more of us who search,” Aunt Aggie said, “the sooner we can be done and on our way.”
“No.”
“You overstep yourself, Mr. King,” Peter said. “I appreciate your concern for our welfare, but it is my brother who has gone missing, my nephews who have vanished. I have the final say.”
Nate sighed.
“My husband has it exactly right,” Erleen parroted. “It’s our family, our responsibility. If you want to help we will be eternally grateful, but it is ours to do.”
Aunt Aggie agreed. “As much as I might like to side with you, Nate, I can’t. Family is family. We must always be there for one another.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“Which is?” Peter asked.
“That all of you could end up like Sully and his sons. Do you really want to bury one another? Do you want to bury Tyne and Anora?”
Erleen puffed out her cheeks like an agitated chipmunk. “That was uncalled for. We love them dearly. The last thing we want is for them to come to harm.Which is why they will stay at the cabin with an adult to watch over them while the rest of us are off searching.”
“Then do me one favor,” Nate said. “Don’t scatter all over. Hunt in a group. You are less likely to be attacked.”
“Staying together would slow the search,” Peter objected. “We must split up. Work in pairs, say. And everyone will have a gun. That way we wi
ll be perfectly safe.”
“Mr. King,” Erleen took up the argument, “we don’t know that Sully and his boys were set upon by hostiles. It could be they were attacked by a wild beast. A grizzly, perhaps. Or a wolverine. I hear they are especially savage. Or maybe Sully and his sons had a mishap. Accidents happen, you know.”
Disgusted, Nate stood and took hold of his rifle. “I need some air.” He closed the front door quietly, then stood letting the cool breeze play over him. Off up the valley an owl hooted, a commonplace call, reassuring in its normalcy.
Nate walked around to the rear of the cabin to check on the horses. The corral was barely big enough to hold them but it had to do. His bay came over to nuzzle him and receive a few pats.
Since the night was moonless, the valley floor was plunged in gloom. The high cliffs blocked out most of the starlight.
Nate groped along the rails until he was at the gate and verified it was tied shut.
All appeared peaceful, but Nate wasn’t fooled. Nowhere was the old saying about appearances being deceiving more appropriate than in the wild. Nothing was ever as it seemed. Tranquil woods might hide painted warriors. The high grass of a scenic mountain meadow might conceal a crouching cougar. A person must always be on his guard.
Nate turned to retrace his steps. He was almost to the cabin when the undergrowth bordering it crackled. Crouching, Nate sought the source.
Mired in murk, something was moving low to the ground.
Nate tensed. No meat-eater would make so much noise. A porcupine, maybe. Or a small bear.
Suddenly the sound stopped.
Nate imagined the animal had caught his scent. In a few moments it would wander away on its nocturnal rounds. But the night stayed silent save for the owl up the valley and the gurgling of the stream.
Nate had never known a porcupine or a bear to stay still so long. They loved to roam and poke their snouts into everything that interested them. He scoured the ground in his vicinity, but only saw a few downed branches and a log.
The next second the log moved.
Nate sighted down the Hawken. It had to be a man. A man who was stalking him. He fixed the sights on what might be the man’s head.
Then the figure gasped and said something in a tongue Nate didn’t speak but which he was familiar with. Wary of a trick, Nate stayed where he was.
The man crawled closer. Or, rather, pulled himself closer, using both of his arms and taking a ragged breath before each pull.
Nate inched forward. The rank smell of blood and urine washed over him. The figure on the ground reached out, and moaned.
Discarding caution, Nate stepped to the man’s side and sank onto a knee. “Do you speak the white man’s tongue?” When he didn’t get an answer, he switched to his wife’s. “Do you speak Shoshone?”
A hand clutched at his, the skin hot to the touch.
“You are a Blackfoot, aren’t you?” Nate reverted to English again, knowing full well he wouldn’t get a reply. He looked for sign of the others, but the warrior was alone.
Coming to a sudden decision, Nate slipped both arms under the man. It was awkward, carrying the warrior and his rifle, both, but he managed. He worked the latch with his eblows and pushed the door open with his foot. Candlelight splashed over his burden and he nearly recoiled in revulsion.
The warrior was a ruin. His left eye was gone, ripped from the socket, a black cavity all that remained. The right eye was so bloodshot, the white of the eye was red. Scratch or claw marks criss-crossed his face and there were bite marks on his throat. One of those bites had severed a vein, soaking his buckskins with blood. It was a miracle the man was alive.
Peter, Erleen and Aunt Aggie were still at the table. Astonishment had rendered them mute, but not for long. Erleen threw herself out of her chair, crying in dismay, “Where did that heathen come from?”
Nate carefully laid the warrior on the floor. Each breath the man took threatened to be his last. “Question?” Nate asked in sign language. “Enemy wound you?”
The warrior tried to reply, but couldn’t make his fingers work. He tried to speak, but all that came out of his mouth was a trickle of fresh blood.
“Someone get a glass of water for him,” Nate said.
The warrior’s red eye swept the room and stopped on Fitch and Harper. Mewing, he thrust his hand at them, then looked at Nate, trying to convey some meaning.
Nate didn’t understand, and said so in sign language.
Whatever the warrior was struggling to get across died with him; he arched his body, convulsed, and exhaled his final breath.
Peter, Erleen and Aggie had come over, and Peter asked, “Is he dead?”
“Where did you find that savage?” was Erleen’s question.
Aunt Aggie had one, too. “What was he trying to tell you?”
Nate wished to God he knew.
The Smell of Madness
The search commenced an hour after sunrise.
Nate was the first one up. He quietly slipped out to bury the Blackfoot and covered the mound of earth with rocks to discourage scavengers.
Erleen insisted on a big breakfast. Her daughters and Agatha helped cook and bake. They made flap-jacks and oatmeal and toast and corn cakes. Peter remarked that it was too bad they didn’t have eggs and bacon, his usual morning fare back home.
Nate wasn’t going to eat, but the smells were too tantalizing to resist. Especially when he learned they had maple syrup to put on the flapjacks. Once he started eating, he found he was hungrier than he thought. Four flapjacks, a bowl of oatmeal, and two corn cakes later he was full.
It was decided that Aunt Aggie would stay at the cabin with the girls and Philberta.
“Erleen and I will work as a pair,” Peter announced. “Fitch and Harper will hunt together, too. That leaves you, Mr. King, to search by yourself, if you are agreeable.”
Nate was more than willing. He could cover more ground alone.
Fitch and Harper brought the horses from the corral. Nate saddled his bay while they threw saddle blankets and saddles on theirs. Everyone had a rifle except Erleen, who was armed with two pistols. It was decided that she and Peter would search on the right side of the stream, Fitch and Harper would take the other side. That left Nate free to roam as he pleased.
The day started off promising enough. A clear sky and the bright sun dispelled some of the gloom that perpetually shrouded the valley floor.
Nate was the last to leave. “Keep the door closed and barred at all times,” he cautioned Agatha.
“Don’t fret. I won’t let anything happen to the girls or Philberta.”
“If you need me, fire a shot out the window and I’ll come at a gallop. But whatever you do, don’t step foot out of the cabin.”
“We’ll be fine,” Aunt Aggie insisted.
Tyne smiled and waved as Nate rode off and he returned the gesture. He stuck to the trail until it brought him to the cow elk with its belly torn open. Bent low, he rode in ever widening circles. He was thirty feet out when he spied a few indistinct prints. Dismounting, he gave them a closer scrutiny. They weren’t mountain lion tracks or wolf tracks. They might be bear tracks, though no claws were evident. Or they might have been made by something else.
Nate rode in the direction the prints pointed. For half an hour he threaded through some of the thickest forest he had ever seen. He was constantly ducking to avoid low limbs and skirting logs. Many were covered with moss. It reminded him of the forests along the Pacific coast, which he visited once years ago.
As Nate neared the high cliffs, the shadows deepened. It wasn’t even noon, yet he would swear it was twilight. The green of the trees and the grass became a ghostly gray. It lent the illusion he was in a spectral realm. It didn’t help that the woods were so still. Wildlife was completely absent.
At last the trees thinned. Ahead reared the rock ramparts. Nate could see the top by craning his head back. He shuddered to think of his fate should the cliff unexpectedly collapse. Tons of
rock and dirt would smash down on top of him, crushing him to a pulp.
The vegetation ended short of the cliff, leaving an open space between the trees and the rock face. Nate debated which way to go and reined up the valley toward the junction of the cliffs beyond the cabin.
Nate was acting on a hunch. He didn’t have all the particulars worked out in his head yet, but he had enough confidence in his judgment to put his hunch to the test. He hadn’t gone twenty yards when a spot of pink and white caused him to draw rein. Curious, he hung by an elbow and one leg, Comanche fashion, and nearly lost his grip and his breakfast when shock hit him like a physical blow. He was used to violence. He had witnessed more than a few atrocities. But this was unthinkable.
The pink and white was a human finger, or what was left of it. Chewed pink flesh from the nail to the knuckle and gnawed white bone below. Judging by the fresh condition of the flesh, it hadn’t been there long. Since early that morning, Nate surmised. He left it there. Showing it to the others would only sicken them. And they would still insist on continuing the search. They had proven blind to the danger they were in.
The chink of the bay’s hooves was unnaturally loud. The wind was stronger here at the base of the cliffs, and every now and again a gust would stir the trees and brush.
Nate looked for tracks, but the ground was too hard. Smudges and a few vague prints were all he found. Anything might have made them. But the finger practically confirmed his hunch. The bite marks weren’t those of the sharp shearing teeth of a bear or mountain lion or any other meat-eater. They were made by something with strong but blunt teeth, the same as the bite marks on the cow elk, and on the Blackfoot.
Nate didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle worked out yet. The what, he thought he knew. The why, he had an idea. And if he was right, the horror of it all was beyond imagining. He must get the proof he needed to convince the others quickly, before anyone else fell prey to the creatures responsible.
Fear Weaver w-57 Page 9